That explains a lot. The gentoo minimal CDs do not support many wifi cards.
I don't think wpa_supplicant is provided either.

For working wifi during your Gentoo install, SystemRescueCD is highly reccomended.
It provides 32 bit and 64 bit kernels, is based on Gentoo and even has the /mnt/gentoo directory so that following the handboot JustWorks.

You can install Gentoo with any boot media that gives you a root shell as none of the code on the boot media goes into your install._________________Regards,

NeddySeagoon

Computer users fall into two groups:-
those that do backups
those that have never had a hard drive fail.